Ground Moving Target Tracking with Quadrotors using Nonlinear Model Predictive Control

In this paper, we provide a method for a quadrotor to track a ground moving target (GMT). The least squares method is used to obtain a series of reference trajectories generated by the GMT. The tracking is accomplished by applying a novel nonlinear model predictive control (MPC) scheme. The nonlinear MPC scheme applied can deal with the dynamic trajectory tracking problem of nonlinear systems by using reference generic terminal ingredients. After obtaining the reachable reference trajectories and calculating the terminal ingredients of the nonlinear MPC problem, the nonlinear MPC problem can be solved online to obtain the control inputs that enable the quadrotor to accurately track the GMT. A simulation experiment is conducted to verify the efficacy of this method.